LSRG and payments to tourism-reliant businesses

The Tourism Alliance, of which the NCC is a member, has been lobbying to get support for a range of tourism businesses that have been excluded from the Local Restriction Support Grants (LRSG) payments because, although they have not officially been required to close, the lockdown restrictions have it impossible for them to operate.

During a debate in Parliament this week, Tourism Minister Nigel Huddleston MP made the following statement:

“The guidance for these additional restrictions grants encourages local authorities to develop discretionary schemes to help those businesses that are perhaps not legally forced to close but are none the less severely impacted by the restrictions put in place to control the spread of COVID. These could include, for example, businesses that supply the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors or businesses in the events sector. On this point, I have received a number of reports that some tourism-related businesses, which might not be ratepayers and are not explicitly mentioned in the guidance on these grant schemes, are being deemed ineligible by some local authorities.

“To be clear to those local authorities and those businesses, although the ultimate decision is at the local authority’s discretion, the fund can, and in my opinion certainly should, be used to provide grants to tour operators, coach operators … event organisers and similar businesses, all of which serve as vital facilitators to the tourism industry even if they do not sell to consumers directly on a specific premise. I therefore encourage and expect local authorities to be sympathetic to applications from those businesses and others that have been impacted by COVID-19 restrictions but are ineligible for the other grant schemes.

The Local Government Association has agreed to send this passage out to councils, which will support applications that businesses have made for the ARG.